An application sharing protocol enables multipoint device application sharing by allowing a view onto a host or shared device application executing at one site to be advertised within a session executing on other devices at other sites, particularly remote ones. A device at each site can, under specified conditions, take control of the shared device application by sending remote keyboard and pointing device information for example.
Application sharing protocols were originally intended for use over a local area network (LAN) where available bandwidth and latency were not typically an issue. However, the bulk of application sharing tool usage now takes place over wide area networks (WANs) such as the internet where such matters can affect the use of the tools, particularly over connections which exhibit high latency. Because latency over WANs can vary greatly, it is difficult to design a system whose graphical capabilities and frequency of updates are appropriate to the connection type being used.